Thoughts on Education, Leadership, and Life from an Outsider
Honor and revere the gods, treat human beings as they deserve, be tolerant with others and strict with yourself. Remember, nothing belongs to you but your flesh and blood—and nothing else is under your control.
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
I’m always adding books to my TBR – it’s actually gotten ridiculous in length – and I’m always on the lookout for more. My interests range from biographies and histories to epic fantasy and hard sci-fi. Call me weird, but I like what I like.
I ran across this thought from Alan Jacobs and have decided that it’s my new guide for choosing new books…
Wondering how to decide what to read? Here’s a simple but effective heuristic to cut down the choices significantly. Ask yourself one question: Does this writer make bank when we hate one another? And if the answer is yes, don’t read that writer.
Alan Jacobs
Works for me.
It’s December 7, a day that lives in infamy.
BTW, I asked ChatGPT to “explain what ChatGPT is to a fifth-grader,” and here is the response:
ChatGPT is a type of computer program that is designed to help people have conversations. It uses advanced algorithms and a lot of information from previous conversations to understand what you are saying and respond in a way that makes sense. It’s kind of like having a really smart friend who always knows what to say!
– ChatGPT
Suggested reads on AI:
You may have great fear about AI and the possibilities and problems it presents. Remember Wizard’s Seventh Rule: Life is the future, not the past.
Another month of 2022 has come and gone, with it, another round of books. I’m very much on track to finish 100 books this year. Actually, I may hit 103-105 before it’s all said and done. A holiday break is an excellent chance to get some extra reading time in while recharging for the new year.
Plus, I’ve been down with the flu for almost a week, allowing me to read when I haven’t been asleep.
This month, as in October, includes several short audiobooks. With a busy fall, I was behind in hitting my reading goal for the year. I focused on getting caught up the past couple of months with audiobooks. I can listen while I’m working or driving, and I’m also able to play the titles at around 2.5x normal speed. I stumbled across several very interesting titles (especially the John Scalzi titles) that I enjoyed immensely.
Here, in no particular order, are the books I read or listened to in November 2022.
Later this month, I’ll have a final wrap-up of my “best books of 20222.” It’ll be the first time I’ve published a list like this, so bear with me. I want to communicate the reasons behind my selections and hopefully encourage you to begin making your own “best of” lists as you progress through your reading each year.
Reviewing what we read helps to remind us what we learned from the book (yes, you can learn from fiction just as easily as non-fiction). Also, it gives us a chance to practice those ever-important communication skills with another chance to write. It doesn’t matter if you publish your list or keep it in a journal, summarizing and telling someone your thoughts (even if it’s just you) is excellent writing practice.
This post was first published in August 2014, so please forgive any outdated references. I began my student teaching and carried many dreams and plans in my mind. Looking back on these words, I still carry many of these ideas with me eight years later. Maybe I was on to something…
I’m a huge movie fan. Many of my favorite films are science fiction, which, if you know me, is probably a foregone conclusion.
I love Star Wars, Star Trek, The Last Starfighter, Dune… the list goes on for days.
One of my favorite sci-fi films is Contact, based on the book by Carl Sagan. If you’re unfamiliar with the book or film, the plot revolves around what might happen if the human race received a message from another world.
Spoiler alerts ahead if you haven’t seen this nearly 20-year-old movie yet…
In the film’s climax, the main character speaks with a member of an alien race in the guise of her dead father. He explains a bit about how they were able to contact our planet and how things will progress in the future.
Our fearless heroine wants all of her questions answered at once, excited at what this incredible discovery could mean for science and the human race. However, she doesn’t get her wish.
The alien explains to her that progress and communication will come slowly over time. He tells her…
“Small moves, Ellie. Small moves.”
Change is a good but incredibly difficult thing. Especially in education. No matter how great we think some new technology or process is or how much we will benefit from it, the implementation will not come quickly. Not will it come free of pain, problems, and complaints.
Small moves.
Writing this post, I’m in my second full week of student teaching. Of course, I bring with me a fairly large amount of tech experience with a boatload of tools that teachers can use in the classroom. I am not, however, an experienced classroom teacher.
But, I can still show other teachers a few small ways that technology can make their lives easier, engage students, and bring some 21st-century methods into their classrooms.
But it has to start small. A friend of mine introduced Plickers in his classroom as a way to perform formative assessments. He called me over to see the trial run.
Of course, the students loved it. It was cool to see this app grade their responses instantly rather than waiting for their answers to be graded. I knew the kids would love it, and I knew my friend would love it, as we’ve been talking about using it since long before school began.
What I didn’t know would happen was the response from other teachers around his classroom. The buzz in the hallways after school about this little app was astounding. One of the guys from the district IT department even came over to see what we were doing.
Small moves.
Sometimes as tech evangelists, we forget that not everyone is as comfortable with tech as we are. There are teachers in your building right now that have been teaching long enough that they can remember a time when the only computers in the school were in a computer lab, and no teacher had a school email address.
And now we’re asking them to implement tools like GAFE, Microsoft LYNC, iPads, laptops, Chromebooks, and tablets….
Small moves.
If we really want to be great digital leaders, we have to be willing to meet others where they are with tech. Too often, we get carried away with the latest and greatest shiny app that will “revolutionize” our classrooms. We don’t understand why EVERYONE doesn’t use it the day it becomes available.
It’s not about beating other teachers and administrators over the head with new technology. It’s about showing them how one tool can improve or help them. How one tool can ignite a student’s interest in a new way.
It’s about small moves, not giant leaps.
We must be ready to make those small moves quickly and guide others to do the same. When that happens, teachers, administrators, and students win.
Sure, there will always be those asking, “Well, why are you doing this? What’s your motivation? What do you want to get out of it?” They balk at every suggestion and idea made.
But if we’re making small moves, those people will soon be drowned out by the gathering crowd of people making their small moves toward a better system for us all.
And soon, that gathering crowd will no longer be the minority that wants change; they will be the overwhelming majority that drives change and sends our education system in a new and exciting direction.
But it all starts with small moves.
Small moves, Ellie.
As leaders, that’s what we have to do.
Thanks for taking a stroll down memory lane with me.
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The Connected Educator is more than just someone that uses technology in the classroom. The connected educator is a lifelong learner, ready to adapt and use the tools available to improve their practice. They embrace new ideas and viewpoints throughout the connected world. Through the development of connected learning communities, the connected educator can improve their practice, encourage the work of others, and build an ever-changing repository of shared knowledge to benefit the education community as a whole.
As educators of 21st-century learners, we must embrace different models of learning and connectivity that are native to our students. Learning happens for our students in a connected world. The same should hold for educators. Collaboration between educators of diverse backgrounds and levels of expertise allows for creating connected learning communities: an amalgamation of communities of practice, professional learning communities, and personal learning networks. Connected learning communities provide the same benefits as the three aforementioned communities but on a scale not previously achievable due to the connected tools available today.
Conversations with a community of practice can lead to deep, connected learning. Learning as a connected educator is important to connect with global educators in a globalized world. Educators can make learning relevant for themselves and their students through communities of practice. The focus of connected learning is on a collaborative culture that includes having a shared vision, shared values, and opportunities for inquiry.
In the past, connecting outside of the classroom was relegated to professional development opportunities and conferences that only a few educators attended. With tools like Twitter and Facebook, teachers can participate in groups and chats based on grade levels, content areas, teacher leadership, and more. Bookmarking and sharing sites such as Diigo and Wakelet allow teachers to curate resources around any topic and share them with the larger community. Blogging tools like Blogger, WordPress, Squarespace, and more allow teachers to reflect on professional learning with a worldwide audience.
Educators must have a plan and purpose for how they will build their personal learning network (PLN). Tips for getting started creating a PLN include:
Educators assume roles and responsibilities in a PLN: linking, lurking, learning, and leading. Linking and lurking involve staying on the sidelines and being reluctant to share thoughts. Learning and leading members are frequent users who share ideas and help shape the community. The learning and leading roles should commit to bringing those linking and lurking into action.
While forging ahead in new connected realms, it is important that educators work to sustain these communities and foster growth. Through appreciative inquiry, educators can sustain the initial work begun in newly connected virtual communities by focusing on their strengths and asking “what if?” to explore possibilities. Community members can keep a positive perspective on what can be accomplished using the 4-D model of appreciative inquiry: discovering what they feel the group is at its best, dreaming about what it would be like to see those discoveries happen, designing the community to make those dreams happen, and fulfilling the destiny for the community by implementing those designs.
Transformational leaders collaborate, encourage connected learning, and believe in distributed leadership. Distributed leadership is shared throughout the school by many people to strengthen the community. To shift to transformational leadership, traditional leaders must let go of control to move forward. Distributed leadership requires having a shared vision and shared responsibility in problem-solving. In a connected world, solving these problems includes making online connections with experts to inform ideas. Being connected allows teams to collaborate outside of the school day in a shared space.
Being a connected educator goes hand in hand with teacher leadership. It is important in leadership to be an effective communicator and collaborator, which are also important aspects of being connected. Connected educators build their personal learning networks, or communities of practice, to continue professional learning and build connections outside of their school community.
Thanks for reading. Get access to exclusive content and expert insights on technology, teaching, and leadership by subscribing to my newsletter. Stay up-to-date on the latest trends and join our community of professionals and educators worldwide.
References:
Hord, S. M., & Sommers, W. A. (2008). Leading professional learning communities: Voices from research and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Nussbaum-Beach, S., & Hall, L. A. (2011). The connected educator: Learning and leading in a digital age. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Do a Google search for Real World Learning. Then take a look at the number of search results.
Depending on where you are in the world and what day you perform this particular search, you will likely get a different answer, but you should still come to the same conclusion I have:
Real-World Learning is a popular topic, with many people contributing ideas as to exactly what it should be and how it should be accomplished.
But what is real-world learning? What does it look like in a classroom? Is it a goal that can only be reached by the most progressive teachers and schools? Can you actually cover content standards while engaging students in authentic, real-world tasks that involve more than just giving them a “scenario” that mimics a real-world situation?
Real-world learning is a topic that educators have discussed for many years. Research on the topic of integrating social, interactive processes into learning stretches back to 1938 (Maxwell, Stobaugh, and Tassell, 2015) and carry into today with schools offering internships and even job shadowing as part of their curriculum.
But, can real-world learning incorporate standards that students will be tested over on the all-too-emphasized standardized tests taken at the end of every school year for most public school students?
The answer is: yes.
Standards for math, science, ELA, and social studies are not prescriptive in the methods used to teach the standards, only in the content that should be covered. This flexibility provides ample opportunity for educators to design and implement programs that meet the required content standards while providing students with real-world activities that reach beyond the classroom walls.
By doing so, students can see how the content they learn in class has practical applications in the real world and is not just information that must be stored in their brain cells for a year-end dump on a standardized test.
According to Maxwell, Stobaugh, and Tassell (2015), “When a student learns from, interacts with, and has an impact on the real world, higher retention of learning will occur” (p. 21).
Clearly, when a student can move from solving problems or answering questions on a worksheet to solving problems that could have an impact on their community, region, country, or the world, the likelihood that they will work harder, engage in deeper thinking, and ultimately learn more from the problem then we, as educators, must move to more of this learning in our classrooms and schools.
Let’s look briefly at each content area and see how real-world learning can occur around content standards.
In the ELA Literacy standard for 7th graders W.7.1.A, students are tasked with introducing claims, acknowledging other claims, and organizing thoughts and evidence logically (English, n.d.).
From reading just the standard, there is no detailed method for teaching this standard to students, nor an evaluation of any type that can measure student mastery of this topic. Teachers must be able to create or find lessons or projects that can address this standard, leaving much room for introducing real-world learning.
I looked for a sample lesson that might give an example of real-world learning for this standard and found this lesson that tasks students with tracing an argument on whether or not schools should get rid of sports (Doolin, n.d.).
While this lesson does incorporate some real-world learning, I believe it would attain a Level 3 on the Create Excellence Framework (Maxwell et al., 2015, p.19).
Students are engaged in a real-world activity that could have possible consequences but is not asked to create their own argument, and the task is guided by the teacher rather than allowing students to take the lead through inquiry.
However, a project like this could be easily modified to a more real-world task that could be presented to a school-based committee or school board.
Applying real-world learning to standards in mathematics is a task I am involved in every day. I teach math to 6th & 7th graders and am always looking for ways to bring real-world learning into the classroom. However, after reading several articles, I now understand that many of my efforts are far from meeting true real-world learning standards.
In the video Individualized Real-World Learning (Teaching, n.d.), we see a senior that is working in a veterinarian clinic as part of an internship program.
While a great many life skills are incorporated into this experience, the student does reference using math to complete tasks such as calculating correct dosages of medicine for animals.
In this example, the math standards are not the focus of the learning but are an integrated part of the entire learning experience, along with many other subjects. As Maxwell et al. (p.29) noted, Real World Learning “is integrated across subject areas” and takes place not necessarily in a classroom but in the real world.
I am beginning to see how the math standards allow for much flexibility in teaching the necessary content while providing rich and meaningful tasks to students that incorporate ideas and standards from other subject areas to make the learning more meaningful.
Social Studies standards have direct tie-ins to real-world learning. The guiding principles for the standards give direction for the standards and how they should work with other standards and benefit students. Principles include “Inquiry is at the heart of social studies” and “Social studies prepares the nation’s young people for college, careers, and civic life” (College, n.d.)
As with every other content standard area, the Next Generation Science Standards allow for ample real-world learning opportunities for students. Amy Abbott created a project for her class involving analyzing environmental controls in factories that produce clothing and how the dyes are disposed of (Abbott, 2016).
Students were asked to investigate the impact of chemicals being dumped into water sources and draft a portfolio for submission to the United Nations. Included in the lesson are not only standards for science but also standards for ELA (Abbott, 2016). Certainly, this lesson is a fine example of real-world learning with applied content standards.
From the evidence above, we can clearly see that standards for many academic content areas in public schools can be taught using real-world learning.
The opportunity exists for teachers, both current and future, to create programs that are more concerned with creating experiences and authentic learning for students than simply ensuring that content standards are covered at a basic level.
As educators, we should focus on teaching students in environments that mimic or are based on the environments they will have when they are finished with their formal education.
In the video Taylor Mali: In My Middle School (Mali, n.d.), Taylor Mali provides an overview of what he thinks middle school based on real-world learning might look like. Perhaps more educators must work towards creating an ideal environment for our students.
References:
Abbott, A. A. (2016, March). Chemical Connections A Problem-Based Learning, STEM Experience. Science Scope, 39(7), 33-42.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.socialstudies.org/c3
Doolin, K. (n.d.). Should Your School Get Rid of Sports? Retrieved September 11, 2016, from http://betterlesson.com/lesson/559859/should-your-school-get-rid-of-sports
English Language Arts Standards » Writing » Grade 7. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/W/7/
Mali, T. (n.d.). Taylor Mali: In My Middle School. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/the-perfect-middle-school
Maxwell, M., Stobaugh, R., & Tassell, J. H. (2015). Chapter 1: Real-world learning. In Real-world learning for secondary schools: Digital tools and practical strategies for successful implementation. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree. ISBN: 9781935249443.
Teaching channel. (n.d.). Individualized Real-World Learning. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/high-school-internships-bpl
What people think of as the moment of discovery is really the discovery of the question. — Jonas Salk
When we make decisions about the technology we use in our classrooms, we very often ask the wrong questions.
We think about how we can use the latest, greatest, coolest tools and gadgets available to get students in a desperate attempt to engage them in learning while ignoring what we should be focused on in education.
I was the world’s worst offender of chasing the cool factor. Whatever came down the edtech release line, I was there for it. I would watch the Twitter stream during the yearly ISTE conference waiting for new announcements from old favorite companies or to see what the hot, new tool would be this year.
This was a time when every educational technology conference was filled with “60 apps in 60 minutes” sessions that were not unlike the opening of floodgates upon unsuspecting teachers as a skilled pitch person wowed them (most often a classroom teacher themselves) dazzling them with what you could do with kids with this new fandangled whizbangadoodle.
What a time to be alive. And what a sad time to look back upon.
The problem was that there was so much new technology appearing from seemingly nowhere and being adopted by teachers far and wide that we weren’t really sure what to do with all of it.
And no one was asking any questions. If they were, they were shouted down by the cheers of the edtech Illuminati.
If one doesn’t watch the introduction of new technologies and particularly watch the infrastructures that emerge, promises of liberation through technology can become a ticket to enslavement.
— Ursula Franklin
The failure to seriously consider how new technologies might be weaponized reveals a stunning degree of either naivete, hubris, or recklessness.
— LM Sacasas (@LMSacasas) June 1, 2021
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s be clear: I don’t think that educational technology is being weaponized. But I think that we have serious questions to consider before we implement new tools.
The technology we use with our students isn’t just about the tech. It’s about the environment that is created by using technology. Technology usage changes the world around it for either good or not-so-good.
But once a given technology is widely accepted and standardized, the relationship between the products of the technology and the users changes. Users have less scope, they matter less, and their needs are no longer the main concern of the designers.
— Ursula Franklin
As the number of devices in our schools continues to increase and our reliance on technology to complete even the most mundane tasks in schools increases, we should ask better questions about the technology we use and how we use it.
Yes, our questions about technology usage need to be about how these tools are used to support student learning outcomes. We need to know what students will create with the tools we provide them.
We need to ask about issues of access and equity. Not just access to devices and programs but to qualified teachers with the training and support to appropriately leverage any technologies.
Technology distributed and used equitably enables opportunity and voice, dismantles barriers around learner exceptionalities, democratizes access to information, and disrupts racial and economic privilege hierarchies.
— Ken Shelton
We must ask questions about how we use devices in our classrooms and shift the focus from low-level digitization of paper activities and ineffective repetition of skills practices for intervention to deeper learning activities that provide personalization and student-centered learning.
But we should also ask questions about how our technology usage affects us as humans.
LM Sacasas has compiled 41 questions concerning technology that would be excellent conversation starters among teachers, administrators, and students.
Here are the first five of those questions:
I don’t write this article to overly criticize my fellow educational technologists. Several great things are happening in our schools that are directly related to the recent influx of technology and the support that continues to be offered by experts in the field.
We’re doing good work. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t do better work or that there are things we haven’t thought about in our race to improve.
It’s sometimes important to take a breath, get perspective, and ensure we’re on the right path.
The decisions we make with students make impacts that we may never see in our time on this planet.
Let’s be sure we’re asking the right questions.
The reason HyperDocs work is because each one begins with strong lesson design, curates quality instructional content, and packages learning in a way that engages learners. A HyperDoc shifts the focus from teacher-led lectures to student-driven, inquiry-based learning, allowing students to actually learn through exploration.
– The HyperDoc Handbook
HyperDocs are an emerging tool in education. They offer teachers an effective way to design and deliver interactive lessons that keep students engaged, organized, and on-task. But what exactly is a HyperDoc? What are the benefits of using them in the classroom? And how can they be used to improve student engagement and understanding?
Developed in 2016 by Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hinton, and Sarah Landis, Hyperdocs are a digital lesson hub designed by teachers and given to students.
A HyperDoc is an interactive document created by teachers to provide students with an engaging learning experience. A HyperDoc is a digital document, accessible through any number of devices, that contains all the components of a learning cycle in one place. Within the document, students can find hyperlinks to all the resources they need to complete the learning cycle.
The earliest known example of a “digital lesson hub” was WebQuest, which used only online resources to guide students through a lesson.
This makes it easy for teachers to monitor student progress without searching multiple documents or websites. It also provides students with a clearly defined structure to which they can refer back as needed.
HyperDocs have several key advantages over traditional paper-based documents or worksheets.
First, they allow teachers to easily incorporate multimedia elements such as videos, audio clips, images, or animations into their lessons. Whatever resources students need for the lesson can easily be linked or embedded into the Hyperdoc.
Second, they give teachers the flexibility to offer extra support for students or enrichment opportunities for others. Since the hyperdoc is digital, teachers can easily use a template to differentiate instruction.
Lastly, Hyperdocs make it easier for students to collaborate with each other as well as stay organized throughout the lesson plan.
HyperDocs can be used in many different ways to help improve student engagement and understanding in the classroom. For example, teachers can use them to create virtual field trips by incorporating videos and other multimedia elements into their lessons. They can also use them for project-based learning activities by having students work together on a single document instead of individual worksheets or projects. Finally, they can use them as online portfolios where students can showcase their work and reflect on their progress throughout the course of the year.
HyperDocs are quickly becoming popular among educators due to their flexibility and ease of use. They make it easier for teachers to organize their lessons and provide students with an engaging learning environment that encourages collaboration and critical thinking skills while helping them stay on track with their assigned tasks. Ultimately, using HyperDocs in your classroom will help you save time and help your students become more engaged learners who understand the material better than ever before!
How HyperDocs Can Transform Your Teaching
